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ectotherm writes "The US Navy has broken the existing record for the power of a laser. Their new free-electron laser can burn through 20 feet of steel per second. 'Next up for the tech: additional weaponization. The Navy just awarded Boeing a contract worth up to $163 million to take that technology and package it as a 100 kW weapons system, one that the Navy hopes to use not only to destroy things but for on-ship communications, tracking and detection, too — using a fraction of the energy such applications use now, plus with more accuracy.' Now all we need to do is upgrade the sharks..."

The article said it can burn thru 20 feet of steel per second, not 200 per the slashdot version.

Even the 20 feet is likely misleading since I doubt it can sustain that power output for more than a fraction of a second, and anyways if you really were borign thru multiple feet of steel then all your vaporized steel in the borehole you were creating would get in the way of the laser.

Still very impressive though. I'd love to see the face of the first crackpot dictator whose ICBMs are shot down by one of these.

This is very interesting and I think the point is not to shoot down ICBMs but to shoot down anti-ship missiles. Right now, there are simply no way to stop a recent missile before it gets to the ship. Aircraft carriers are currently little more than overpriced targets. This kind of research is vital to the navy.

I wonder if this announcement has anything to do with the recent Chinese parade showing off their new anti-aircraft carrier missile?

I dunno. On the one hand, it gains some political points but on the other... it's the kind of think you'd probably want to keep secret so the other side doesn't spend time and money working on countermeasures.

There do already exist anti-missile defences such as the phalanx gun (a radar guided gun that shoots 3-4000 15mm rounds per minute = 50+ rounds/sec), but this would certainly be a huge step up in defensive capability.

If the United States military exercised their full capability everyone on the planet would be dead multiple times over and a significant percentage of all human civilization infrastructure would be destroyed.

Summaries are intentionally misleading and made that way by the editors. It encourages people to "participate" in a discussion and is for keeping mindshare with people people who are somehow not discouraged by repeated editorial manipulation.

That explains a lot.

Single fox news link posted to the front page? Seriously could have gotten a better source.

I'll say. That's why there are such gems as producing a supercharged electron beam that can burn through 20 feet of steel per second. A free electron laser [wikipedia.org] uses a beam of electrons as a lasing medium, but it never leaves the device.

“We’re fast approaching the limits of our ability to hit maneuvering pieces of metal in the sky with other piece of flying metal,” explained Rear Admiral Nevin P. Carr Jr., Chief of Naval Research, in an interview with FoxNews.com. That

This 500kV test was of just the accelerator (i.e. the bit the produces the electron beam part of a Free Electron Beam laser), not the FEL itself. It's this electron beam that is purported to do the extraordinary steel-cutting, not the laser beam. There is no mention of whether this was a momentary or sustained electron beam output. A 500kV accelerator on it's own isn't all that impressive, but once they package it into a small volume (room rather than building), and actually use it to lase, then that will be very impressive indeed.

And what percent of incoming light do you think chrome paint reflects? 99%? Why, that only leaves 2.5 inches of steel per second of cutting power, and what it actually needs is enough heat to burn paint, which is considerably less.

Mirrors don't work against extremely high power lasers. The electric field strength at the focal point is such that electrons are ripped directly out of the atoms. This forms a plasma which is an efficient absorber regardless of how shiny the surface originally was.

I was being facetious about the chrome painted missile but you are wrong about mirrors and high power lasers.

It is not as simple as spraying krylon chrome paint on a substrate to create a laser mirror and cooling is an issue but even high power lasers utilize mirrors in the optical cavity with a Q switch outcoupler mirror on one end.

These laser systems are being developed to shoot down incoming artillery and missiles. That's why the US Navy is commissioning companies to develop small enough systems to be fit in destroyers. That way, the US carrier group employs these destroyers to protect the carrier group from airborne threats while the carrier, with their fighters and bombers, occupy themselves with attacking stuff over the horizon.

I may be off base here, but I'm pretty sure building a mirror that reflects an energy beam that can burn through 20ft of steel per second is impossible. Or rather, impossible with today's technology. Or do you think a mirror-coated ICBM would be invulnerable to said laser? Think a little!

What makes you think that they're just for attacking? One of the nice things about lasers is that they can be aimed very quickly. With enough energy, you can vaporise incoming artillery shells. And if you can vaporise any incoming cruise or ballistic weapons, you can get very close to the enemy...

So you have an incoming ballistic projectile coming at you and you shoot it with you laser.. You now have a molten superheated projectile of the exact same mass and velocity coming at you.. It is very convinient to be able to detonate warheads before impact, but the enemy will stil have old-fashioned mass-based weapons to shoot you with.

Umm, what if the enemy launched 1000 fake missiles at the same time---how many simultaneous targets can it destroy? What if they launched a series of missiles from beyond the horizon, how long can you keep using your laser? What if they launched torpedos instead, or at the same time, does your laser also work underwater? What if they launched highly reflective chaff with their missiles, would your laser be able to find the target and would it have full energy? What if they launched a whole lot of small missiles rather than one big one? What if their missiles incorporated radar invisibility, so you don't see it with the auto-aiming mechanism? What if they just launched chunks of metal that didn't care if they had a pin-sized hole in them? What if they made missiles that looked like missiles, but actually had the explosive part offset somehow, so your super-accurate laser kept burning holes in irrelevant areas?

I like the AC's response for humor, but I can envision us putting up a bunch of orbital mirrors. 'Course, why not put the weapon in orbit as well? Cuts down on half the travel time, and also can be more accurately pointed.

Everybody's complaining about the weaponization of this, and I agree they don't need any more toys, but I think this is a good thing because it's a great step towards laser launching systems and away from chemical rockets.

The military may have done it but it also could be adapted to commercial usages.

Heck one thing I can think of is dismantling large ships in boneyards. This would be good for any sort of metal recycling in fact.

They created an incredibly expensive weapon that could only be used to very accurately kill single person per shot, but through several layers of armor.

The only possible effect of such a weapon on the nature of warfare would be to change war from a bloody activity in which thousands or millions of commoners sacrifice their lives for the goals of a few powerful elite, to one in which the powerful elite are the targets: A B-1 bomber with a single-shot laser is not exactly the kind of equip

It's hard to believe that peace lovers would be opposed to the very kind of weapon that would reduce the bloodshed and put pressure on the very causes of wars...

That's because it isn't. If you start assassinating the enemy's leadership (whether it be with baseball bats or orbiting laser projectors), you're going to start World War III. And, because you've killed off all the people who had the power to say "stop", it will continue until we're all dead.

Your complaints are stupid. The opening scene showed that the laser was a secret project without any oversight -- hidden from the president and any anyone outside their group -- and when one member of the group in charge decided he couldn't be party to this type of activity, the group ordered his execution (via a thin euphemism). It wasn't that a laser couldn't be used for a reduction in losses, it was that they were obviously going to use it to take out whomever they wanted.

Correct, which is why a group of college students interfering with a top-secret military project was entirely justifiable within the film's plotline.

Everyone is concerned about the americans; most of them are very ripe for the psych ward.

Ignorance on a grand scale, I'm impressed. "Most of them". How many is that? A hundred and fifty million? Two hundred million? Three hundred million? You really think that 300 million crazy people managed to accomplish what we have, managed to become the threat that you imagine us to be? Grow up, dude, otherwise you really come off like a pissed-off peon suffering from sour grapes.

So yes such a contraption in orbit would actually give them total dominion over the world, which is of course what they would like...

No, we wouldn't. Why ignorant people like you insist upon attributing to the United States the sort of evil grandiosity more cor

"Scientists there, in coordination with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), injected a sustained 500 kilovolts (KV) of juice into a prototype accelerator where the existing limit had been 320 kV..."

OK, so they "injected" 500kV of "juice." Fuck you, fox news.

"According to ONR officials, that laser beam will eventually perform at a staggering âoemegawatt class,â a measure of the laser's strength. Right now, the accelerator at Jefferson Lab is performing at just 14 Kilowatts."

So wait, the power output of this thing is actually 14kW, and the goal of the program is to reach 1MW. But apparently they were at 10kW four years ago... so what's this article actually about? The fact that they increased the voltage to 500kV from the previous 320kV? Why does that matter?

"Today, Neil and others have shown that they have the ability to harness super-conducting electron power."

Oh ok, I guess the big development here is that they're using superconductors... or something. It's tough to tell, because "super-conducting electron power" is a series of words that, when strung together, don't mean a fucking thing.

So wait, the power output of this thing is actually 14kW, and the goal of the program is to reach 1MW. But apparently they were at 10kW four years ago... so what's this article actually about? The fact that they increased the voltage to 500kV from the previous 320kV? Why does that matter?

It matters because the Navy is cutting Boeing a check for $163 million. And if they did so without declaring some sort of technological milestone (particularly in todays economy), people would be pissed.

If only I had mod points today - I'd mark you up sky high. It's one of the things that always irks me about most science reporting in the popular media: the inability to tell apart key concepts like "power", "energy", and "voltage." Fox News isn't alone in this realm of ignorance - they just happen to have it elevated to high art. No wonder most adherents to Fox News don't understand our upcoming resource and climate crisis: they've been fed incoherent babble like this.

If the article were on CNN, I'd have said "fuck you, CNN." Anyone can write badly on things they don't understand: it's a media company's job to ensure that they employ competent staff and then review their output before it goes up for the world to see. Clearly, nobody at foxnews.com even proofread that article, much less verified its technical accuracy.

What planet do you live on? But the humans of earth are a jealous lot, full of hate and mistrust, and belief that their way is the only way to live, and that all other ways must be eliminated.

Before you go spouting off stupid again why don't you take a look at the shear number of fanatics in the world(christian, muslim, jewish, whale watcher, environmentalist, whatever) and decide if your small army will work againist people who don't believe in reason and are willing to fight to the death for their illogic.

"It's all very well to laugh at the military, but when one considers the meaning of life, it is a struggle between alternative viewpoints of life itself. And without the ability to defend one's own viewpoint against other perhaps more aggressive ideologies, then reasonableness and moderation could quite simply disappear. That is why we will always need an army, and may God strike me down if it were to be otherwi..." ZAP!

the humans of earth are a jealous lot, full of hate and mistrust, and belief that their way is the only way to live, and that all other ways must be eliminated

Suddenly the foreign policy and economically destructive wars perpetuated by the United States make sense.

Uh... what? Do you really believe that the United States is hell-bent on eliminating other ways of life? Do you really believe that (because if so, that's just bizarre) or are you just America-bashing for fun? I'd say the Soviets did a hell of a lot more in that regard than the United States ever did. Many of our previous conflicts were ostensibly driven by ideological differences (although, if you dig a little deeper you'll usually find that there was more to it than that) but since the Cold War is over w

what we use the army for isn't what it is designed for . The US army aren't police and shouldn't be used to keep the peace.

I also agree that something has to give in the USA spending strategies. However while we may only rarely directly benefit from some of those, things like the internet, UAV's, even submersibles all allow us to see our word and do things that would never come to bear without someone losing tons of money on them to begin with.

Someone needs to take there toys away from them and stop the nonsensitive before they start testing it on us, which we all know they will, heck disband all military we really just need a small group to protect the environment and or a army that create Harmony between nations.

The "20 feet of steel per second" number is similar to Slashdots car analogies - a way to make an otherwise difficult to understand number more human friendly. It's probably just the time it took to burn though, say, 1/4" of steel scaled up how much it could cut through in a second, if they could operate it continuously (which presumably they can't).

The goal of this thing certainly isn't cutting though many feet of steel - it's for shooting down missiles.

The "20 feet of steel per second" number is similar to Slashdots car analogies - a way to make an otherwise difficult to understand number more human friendly. It's probably just the time it took to burn though, say, 1/4" of steel scaled up how much it could cut through in a second, if they could operate it continuously (which presumably they can't).

The goal of this thing certainly isn't cutting though many feet of steel - it's for shooting down missiles.

With 20 ft per second I can maybe agree (that translates to a quarter an inch of steel per millisecond on a stationary target), but when they hit 2000, it's quacking like the duck that it is.

That is not so useful to fire on one ship from another since you cannot shoot over the horizon. Missiles can sink your ship before you get in range. Unless you get down all of them with the laser, of course.

That is not so useful to fire on one ship from another since you cannot shoot over the horizon. Missiles can sink your ship before you get in range. Unless you get down all of them with the laser, of course.

Right now the USN doesn't use any OTH missiles for ship-to-ship duties. We keep the Harpoon (XGM-84) around because it's cheap and with some minor mods (a GPS unit) can be used as a land attack missile.

The preferred anti-ship system right now is an SM-2 because with them you maintain positive control throughout the entire flight. It's also a hell of a lot faster than a subsonic Harpoon, which combined with the solid fuel makes it a lot more dangerous.

I interned in the instrumentation and control group of the Jefferson Lab FEL the summer I graduated from high school. My main project was working with the optics guys to write some spot-size detection software in C. Until my current job, it was definitely the most fun I've ever had in my life that didn't involve rafting. Of course, back in 2002, they had just started the 10kW upgarde project from 1kW, so a little over 10 years to get it working at 10x that capacity is pretty sweet.

the project website for all the real, nerdy, details is here [jlab.org] if anyone is interested.

Well, not so much 20 feet of steel directly, but there's a lot to be said for a weapon that could punch through 1-2 feet of layered tank armour, or melt a substantial hole in a warship. While many warships are not heavily armored nowadays, there are still exceptions.

Remember that laser illuminance falls off quite rapidly with distance, especially in humid or dusty conditions. Having the power to burn through 20 feet of steel in perfect conditions at a relatively close range means you'll probably be able to still knock down that missile that's miles away in bad conditions.

There's also the factor of being able to keep the laser in one spot long enough to do damage. 1 second is a very long time to keep a beam in one spot so you need enough power that even a fraction of a

TFA says one advantage of this laser is that, because the wavelength is adjustable, you could theoretically compensate for the atmosphere by picking a wavelength to which the atmosphere is mostly trasnparent.

The problem with weaponized lasers has always been that it's hard to keep them exactly on one spot long enough to really do damage. I mean, against a static target you're probably not going to need 20 feet of steel in a second, but if you're aiming at a ballistic missile then maybe you need to get through a quarter inch of steel in a millisecond. Then of course there's the typical "paint a mirror on your missiles" defense - but mirrors aren't perfect, and some fraction of the damage gets through (and once i

I doubt there are too many places an ICBM travelling at Mach 1 can sustain even a 1/2" hole bored thru it without either somthing vital (fuel, wiring, electronics, warhead) being hit, or just simply losing control aerodynamically and breaking up a la Columbia (Space Shuttle) with a hole in the wing.

Mach 1 is about 340 m/s. At that speed the Navy could send up a fighter and throw a rope around it. ICBM reentry speeds are usually over 4,000 m/s, with in-flight speeds of over 6,000 m/s. Or about Mach 16. A different magnitude of problem...

You realize that the majority of technological advances through human history have been from war technology? There are innumerable applications for lasers like this, more peaceful ones than not. Furthermore, why should the US car what anyone else thinks? Humans come from tribes and tribes fight eachother for resources. Nations are like big tribes. The Chinese are pulling an economic war with the rest of the world, and also spying on everyone. Why shouldn't the US be able to show the Chinese we still have so

Yes, keep insulting Americans, on an American server running American software, on an American-created internet, with an American-created computer, while telling us all how negatively America affects your day-to-day life.
Though ironically, I'd say your nationality is actually most likely to be... American. And that's all kinds of psychological issues right there... more daddy issues than a season of "Lost".

Name another country that hasn't been as belligerent and warmongering as they were able to be.

Yeah, it would be fantastic if the U.S. went all peacenik, but realistically, any country, any people, with their economy and relative safety would (and have, in the past) build up their military and throw their weight around. It's asking a little much for Americans to take an enlightened that everyone else has failed at taking, and crapping on them for not doing it is pretty simpleminded.

If lasers ever become a serious threat against naval vessels, you could attach mirrors to divert the beams.

Can you? No mirror is perfect, there is always some absorption, and given a beam powerful enough the leakage is going to melt the mirror. Nor do optical mirrors reflect all wavelengths equally: if your laser is tunable you can give the enemy a lot of grief by fiddling with the frequency.

There's also the issue of specular reflections: the slightest touch of a beam that powerful is going to permanently blind anyone in the vicinity, friend or foe. The collateral damage from a high-powered laser used on the